Doctors With 'Dirty Hands'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26668-2003Jun6.html
By Maryam Elahi and Adam Kushner
Sunday, June 8, 2003; Page B07
For most people, it's unimaginable to think of physicians assuming the
role of torturers and executioners. Yet under Saddam Hussein this is
what took place. Whether the complicity was forced or voluntary,
physicians participated for years in the state's apparatus of cruelty
and terror. As researchers for Physicians for Human Rights in Iraq, we
spoke to many doctors who reported on complicity in these heinous
acts. The state wanted them to have "dirty hands," said one senior
surgeon, who told us that they acted on a government mandate ordering
all surgeons to participate in cutting off the ears and branding the
foreheads of army deserters. In one hospital, all surgeons -- general,
orthopedic, plastic, cardiac and neurosurgeons -- were reportedly
required to perform the mutilation.
[...]
The extent to which Iraqi surgeons participated in mutilation in Iraq
appears to be unprecedented, but this is hardly the first instance of
complicity, forced or voluntary, by physicians in human rights
violations. In South Africa, hearings held by the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission showed how deeply the profession's
leadership was implicated in the perversion of medical values under
apartheid. The response of some institutions in South Africa, however,
demonstrates one route forward -- a thorough review and accounting of
the role of members of the profession in human rights violations and a
commitment to human rights through new institutional structures and
policies. Now the Iraqis must decide on an accountability mechanism
that fosters reconciliation and stability, and the United States and
its allies in Iraq should create a safe environment for this process
to begin.
Maryam Elahi, a lawyer, and Adam Kushner, a physician, are research
consultants for Physicians for Human Rights.
----------------------------------------------------------
For more on human rights abuses by medical professionals, see also the book
_Journey Into Madness, The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse_
by Gordon Thomas. You can probably find a used copy somewhere. These pages
contain some excerpts:
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/gordonThomasJourneyImplants.htmlhttp://www.datafilter.com/mc/gordonThomasOnSchwitzgebelMachine.html
Thomas' own site is at http://www.gordonthomas.ie/mindfield.htm.
Here is an interesting excerpt from a _NY Times_ article pertaining to Frank
Olson's death:
What Did the C.I.A. Do to Eric Olson's Father?
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/nyTimesWhatDidCiaDoToEricOlsonsFather.html
[...]
Frank Olson's specialty, it turned out, had been the development of
aerosols for the delivery of anthrax. With the discovery in the
1950's that the North Koreans were brainwashing American prisoners,
the Special Operations Division at Detrick became the center for the
development of drugs for use in brainwashing and interrogation. LSD
emerged as one of the interrogation drugs of choice. Alice Olson never
knew exactly what her husband was doing -- he was, in fact, working
for the C.I.A. by this time -- but she did know that whenever his lab
tested chemical or biological compounds on monkeys and the monkeys
died, her husband would bring a testy silence home.
One mystery -- entry and exit stamps in Frank Olson's passport,
indicating that he had been to Sweden, Germany and Britain in the
summer of 1953 -- seemed to offer a crucial clue to his state of mind
in the months before his death. Through Gordon Thomas, a British
journalist and author of numerous books on intelligence matters, Eric
learned that during a trip to London his father had apparently
confided in William Sargant, a consultant psychiatrist who advised
British intelligence on brainwashing techniques.
According to Thomas, who was a lifelong friend of Sargant's, Olson
told Sargant that he had visited secret joint American-British testing
and research installations near Frankfurt. Thomas's hypothesis is that
the C.I.A. was testing interrogation and truth serums there -- not on
monkeys but on human subjects, "expendables," captured Russian agents
and ex-Nazis. Thomas says that Olson confessed to Sargant that he had
witnessed something terrible, possibly "a terminal experiment" on one
or more of the expendables. Sargant heard Olson out and then reported
to British intelligence that the young American scientist's misgivings
were making him a security risk. He recommended that Olson be denied
further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research
establishment.
[...]
I hope that captured Taliban and Iraqi soldiers -- ones we never hear about
-- are not being considered "expendables" for experimentation. Many mind
control victims will tell you, though, that terminal experiments on the
domestic population are still being conducted. Finally, and related to
these CURRENT AND ONGOING DOMESTIC ABUSES, please see
Won't medical professionals help mind control victims?
http://www.datafilter.com/alb/medicalCommunityComplicity.html
[...]
Another item to consider is the case of Brian Wronge, at
http://www.brazilboycott.org/BrazilByct/help.html. Even with court
instructions to have an implant removed for inspection -- from the
judge presiding in his lawsuit -- he could not even obtain help from
the Physicians for Human Rights!
[...]
According to the article linked in the excerpt above, surgeons frequently
cited fear of FBI retaliation if they helped Wronge. Which brings us back
to the first article above, but not in Iraq and not conducted by Uday
Hussein.
--
Mind Control: TT&P ==> http://www.datafilter.com/mc
Home page: http://www.datafilter.com/alb
Allen Barker